As I frequent user of CSS for layout for several years I can tell you that it's more than fluff.

As I have pointed out before, CSS and HTML are not diametrically opposing technologies. CSS is an extension of HTML.
These CSS-versus-tables arguments are nothing but fluff and propaganda which spread a myth of distinctness.

It's not fluff propaganda. It just depends on your priorities. It does create tighter code. It does make it easier to keep the look of a site consistent. It does make design changes faster and easier. It almost always makes the page more accessible.
The apparent fact that there's no real proof that it improves ranking does not negate any of the real advantages it offers.

Gladstein - be warned, I've gotten into quite a debate with Michael Martinez over this before.
At this point I'm sure he's just trolling.
Also, I'd like to point out that Rand's original post isn't really focusing on CSS versus the dinosaurs debate, he's focusing on the presentation style used in the article.

Not to worry. The thread I linked to above included Michael, and he and I didn't completely disagree with each other on the issue.
I do agree that the format of the presentation is great, and I normally despise Powerpoint presentations. I'd rather have someone just hand me a bulleted list of points in most cases.

Agreed - I hadn't seen the presentation originally, and I'm pointing it out more for the quality and style of the delivery, rather than the content itself. I think that even Michael would agree that their layout and user experience throughout the presentation is exceptional.

Lots of talk about CSS here lately, nice! Web design sites are filled with tips and tricks about how to accomplish one thing or another; everyone shares their knowledge. This is different from the SEO sites where most people hide their techniques in the hope they will get an advantage. This is what makes seomoz such a good thing, you share your ideas with the community instead of keeping them to yourself, something that has made your site very popular. SEO sites should be more like CSS sites, you have got that right!

Great stuff. I love the way they stress the bandwidth savings. I mention that to clients and they tell me it's not a big deal, so I have to add something like, "It'll be a big deal after we increase your traffic."
I have a bit of a problem with the claim that CSS-based design is better for rankings:

Speaking of accessiblity, minimizing your markup and using header tags properly will also help improve your search engine ranking.
Reducing the ratio of code to content, using keywords in your header tags, and replacing header GIFs with actual text will all help your sites get better search engine results.

I absolutely believe in doing all of those things, but with the exception of replacing images with text, I've never seen evidence that it makes any difference to a search engine.

"I absolutely believe in doing all of those things, but with the exception of replacing images with text, I've never seen evidence that it makes any difference to a search engine."
Text instead of images kicks big butts in the SERPs!

We had a discussion at High Rankings about this recently and I was surprised to learn that apparently nesting an image in a heading tag will communicate to most user agents (including spiders) that the image's alt attribute is the text of the heading. It's like FIR with a step or two skipped.
I'm not sure that it's a good idea, but it does appear to work.

This is one of my favorite sites to show people when explaining the advantages of CSS over tables driven design.
I especially like when he starts comparing the code used when styling a table using traditional markup versus using CSS: http://www.hotdesign.com/seybold/16nasty.html